Call Your Witness
by betweenstories
Summary: Indicted drug trafficker Alex Vause is granted a new trial. Wayward newcomer Piper Chapman is her criminal defense lawyer.
1. Chapter 1

(All characters are property of_ Orange is the New Black_ and its creators and I do not seek to profit from their inclusion in this story, etc etc.)

**A/N:** Yes, I have two other in-progress fics, but I had this idea and I had to write it. To quote Wanda Bella, "_how it is." _ I hope you enjoy!

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><p>She'd never imagined that her career would land her in a maximum security prison, and yet there she was, surrendering her belongings to a bored-looking correctional officer at a checkpoint just past the visitors' entrance. She handed over her keys, phone, and briefcase. A thick leather folio remained tucked under her arm. Inside it was a legal pad, a pen, and a manilla folder marked 'Alex Vause.' That folder was the reason she was in prison on a Monday morning, incongruously attired in her best suit and waiting to be patted down by a guard with an ominous stain on her uniform.<p>

It was just another day at the office.

When Piper Chapman had announced that she was applying to law school, she'd envisioned herself kicking off her career with a Reese Witherspoon-like flourish. Her parents had praised her for choosing such a noble profession, and then whispered fervently to each other about the likelihood of a triple figure salary. They hadn't thought to ask her what _kind_ of law she intended to practice. They hadn't thought to warn her that criminal defense involved working with, well... _criminals_. She chose it in part because she knew it would scandalize them, and because she hoped she might actually do some good for people. Now, three years into her career, Piper was coming to terms with the fact that criminal law had nothing in common with the Legally Blonde franchise. She was already as jaded as the rest of her colleagues. The justice system remained incomprehensible, the clients were often impossible to work with, and Piper's trial record was garbage - which is why she'd just been assigned to counsel Alex Vause, a notoriously difficult client who'd already fired two private attorneys.

After pinning a security pass to her lapel, Piper followed the correctional officer past the common visitor's area and into a private meeting room, where she was left alone to wait.

She opened the case file, sifted through the documents, and withdrew a printed photo of the defendant. It was a mugshot, actually, the one that had been taken by the prison after Vause's sentencing. Piper had studied it many times in preparation for this meeting. Photos could normally tell her a lot about a client's demeanor, and this one was no exception. Vause was gazing steadily into the camera, head tilted to one side as if she were trying to intimidate the photographer. Her lips were slightly pursed, eyes narrowed in a glare of clear loathing. If looks could kill, she'd be on trial for murder instead of drug trafficking. Thankfully for her public defender, that wasn't the case.

"I take better photos than that."

Piper looked up sharply - she was so engrossed in studying her subject that she hadn't heard the footsteps heralding Vause's arrival.

"Hi-res, too, if you need a new lock screen for your iphone."

Unnerved by being caught unaware, Piper stood up in haste. "Miss Vause," she said stiffly. "Please come in."

Her client looked less intimidating in person - less substantial somehow, as if her five months in federal detention had shrunk her down to size. Through the dark frames of glasses her eyes were fever-bright with disdain, but her hair was flat and limp, and the confidence she exuded in her photograph was noticeably absent. Piper had seen this before, of course; no defendant made it long in prison with their ego intact.

Vause stepped into the room, crossed it in three long strides, and sat down in the metal framed chair across the table from her new attorney. The defendant fixed her haughty stare on Piper, ignoring the C.O. that was presently cuffing her wrists to the arms of her seat. The chair in turn was bolted to the floor, designed to keep the inmate immobile.

"Knock when you're done," the officer instructed, throwing Piper the barest glance before shuffling out of the room and closing the door behind him. The sound of the lock turning was audible.

They were alone.

Piper's client was still staring at her with a sharp, unblinking gaze, and she was unpleasantly surprised to discover that it made her nervous. She cleared her throat.

"Miss Vause," she began again, "I'm Piper Chapman. As you know, I've been assigned as the public defender for your retrial. I'd like to start with-"

"I'd prefer to be addressed by my first name. If you don't mind."

"Alright." She blinked. "Alex, then. Perhaps you can start by filling in a few blanks for me. Why did you get transferred to max four days ago?"

Alex's eyes narrowed. "Have you even read my file?" she questioned, disdainfully.

Piper hesitated, sensing a trap.

"I mean, you know that I imported heroin."

"... yes?" Piper confirmed, looking puzzled. And then it dawned on her: the ragged appearance, the feverish glint in the eyes, and - looking more closely, Piper noticed a fine sheen of sweat on her client's face. The tell-tale signs of withdrawal; Alex had been transferred here in order to detox.

"How long has it been?" she asked, not unkindly.

"Five days," her client replied, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "And eleven hours," she added, a wistful note creeping into her voice. She looked down at the floor.

"You've been in prison for five _months_, Alex." Which meant that she'd somehow had access to a steady supply of heroin, to keep her addiction fed.

Piper should have been surprised, but she wasn't. It was no secret that prison had one of the most profitable black markets around, and drugs were common currency. If an inmate wanted to get their hands on something, they only needed to trade favors with the right people. And locked up in a place like this, the temptation to seek a chemical escape must be overwhelming. Her client had probably been caught using - either that, or she'd run out of favors to barter with.

"Don't do that," Alex said, sharply, lifting her gaze.

"What?"

"Don't look at me like you feel sorry for me. I don't want your fucking pity, okay? That's not what I'm paying you for."

"You're not paying me at all," Piper countered. She felt _far_ from sorry for an ungrateful convict with a notorious temper. "I'm your assigned counsel. You fired your private attorney - why?"

"He tried to force me into a stupid plea deal."

"Then he was doing his job," Piper said, firmly. "You have to know that the facts of your case are stacked against you. The evidence is incontrovertible. They have a dozen of your fake passports, a bag with three pounds of drugs sewn into the lining. The ruling in your appeal was lucky - a mistrial doesn't make you less guilty."

"Are you sure you're here to defend me? Because you sound a lot like the prosecution."

"The best hope you have is to make a plea deal for less time. I can get that for you, but I'm going to need your cooperation."

Alex was staring at her again, gaze darting searchingly over Piper's features. Then her eyes widened slightly, and the ghost of a once-frequent smirk stole over her as she leaned forward in her seat. "I don't think you're in a position to be making promises, _Piper_. I've read your file, too. You're a rookie with a terrible record. You've won, what, two cases in three years?"

Piper's cheeks burned, less from the sting of the insult and more from the look of triumph on Alex's face as she savored her victory. Despite losing her freedom, the defendant was not quite powerless - she still had her words, her wit, and the ability to wound.

"I should fire you now," Alex continued with obvious pleasure, "and save us both the trouble."

"Maybe," Piper agreed. "But you won't. You're facing a lot of time, and like it or not I'm your best chance at getting out of here while you're still young enough to make a life for yourself."

"I already have a life!" Alex spat back.

"You _had_ one," Piper corrected, "and then you got caught."

"What do _you_ have?" her client countered, with a savage sneer. "A shitty studio apartment in small-town Connecticut? Eighty thousand dollars in student loans? I've made eighty thousand in a _week_, and you still think you're better than me just because you're wearing a fucking nylon blend suit from JC _fucking_ Penny."

And there it was - that desperate temper, that frantic extending of claws, like an animal caught in a trap. Because that's what Alex was - a caged thing, shackled to a chair. A flightless raven, and all she could do was make noise. She was less than an ill-omen. She was an empty threat.

There was a barely audible clanking sound in the room, and, searching for the source of it, Piper realized it was the jangling of her client's cuffs against the frame of the chair.

Alex's hands were shaking.

Piper did, in fact, feel sorry for her.

"Detoxing is rough," she said, coolly, getting to her feet. "Take some time. Get clean. I'll schedule an appointment with your counselor next week, and then you and I can begin building your case."

She knocked to let the guard know they were finished. When she exited the room, she did not spare a glance for the aggrieved addict left in her wake.

::::::

It was a forty-minute drive from the Litchfield Federal Detention Facility to Piper's office in Avon, which meant forty minutes of Alex's barbed comments echoing in her head.

_'You've won, what, two cases in three years?'_

She wondered where Alex had gotten her information from. Sure, Piper's records were all public - but it wasn't like Alex could type her name into Google. Clearly, she'd done thorough research with limited resources. The fact that Alex knew so much about her already made the back of Piper's neck prickle disconcertingly. Information was power, and hoarding it was how defense attorneys kept their clients in check. Without that advantage, she was already off to a rough start.

Beyond that, the comment stung because it was true. Sure, new hires were often given the firm's most hopeless cases - it was a kind of professional hazing - and no one expected her to pull off any miracles. But the poor success rate bothered her. It was like getting seventy percent on a test that was pass/fail - the number didn't matter, but it still stung after all the work she put in to prepare for it.

She checked in at the office for a few hours, but found it difficult to concentrate. On the corner of her desk her phone was racking up missed calls from her best friend, Polly - and when she failed to pick up, the calls were discontinued in favor of lengthy texts about some guy named Larry that she was being set up with tomorrow. _Great_. Just what she needed, a reminder about the sad state of her love life. Blind dates were for divorcees and spinsters, and Piper was neither, yet - although with a career this unrewarding and a dating history this dismal, she'd end up a lonely cat lady in no time.

By late afternoon she was thoroughly tired of bending her neck over court transcripts, and the constant buzzing of her phone was bringing on a headache. She decided to call it a day.

She drove back to her apartment and, even though it was only four pm, poured herself a glass of wine. Who was there to judge? A resounding silence answered the question.

It wasn't silent for long, however - as if on cue, her phone started ringing. For once, it wasn't Polly.

"Hello?"

_"An inmate from Litchfield Federal Prison is attempting to contact you. To accept the call, please press one."_

Piper frowned. She was expecting a call from Vause's counselor, but his phone was on a separate line from the inmate's outgoing circuit. That meant the call was coming directly from her client.

She dialed the number to accept.

"Alex?"

There was a brief pause. "Are you taking calls from any other Litchfield inmates at present?" The voice sounded faintly amused, and Piper found herself blushing. Then she realized how stupid it was to be embarrassed by her own client - her _incarcerated_ client - and her cheeks burned even hotter.

"No. I'm just surprised they added me to your PSI that fast. What is it you want to discuss?"

"I need you to come back tomorrow."

Alex's tone was firm, crisp, compelling, as if she were giving a command instead of asking for a favor. She was practiced at this, Piper realized; she was used to ordering people around. Persuading people. As a high-ranking member of a trafficking organization, she would have had her fair share of mules to direct. She would know how to manipulate people into giving her what she needed, a fact that Piper had to be more conscious of as they moved forward with the case. She couldn't let her own client bully her around. She needed to be careful.

"I told you I'd be back next Monday," she said firmly, trying to match Alex's commanding tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I could have sworn you said you were my new defense attorney."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Your point being?"

"That, technically, you work for me, so you're supposed to integrate your schedule around _my_ needs."

"You're right," Piper agreed, her temper flaring. "How could I be so inconsiderate? Please, pencil me in between your morning bunk search and your afternoon squat-and-cough."

"Wow, very professional, Miss Chapman. Do you talk to the judges that way? It would explain your shit trial record."

Piper closed her eyes, gathering up the last shreds of her fraying patience. "You're right. I'm sorry. But we can't meet tomorrow, Alex. Your next forty-eight hours are going to feel like hell, you'll be in no condition to-"

"You think I don't know what heroin withdrawals feel like?" Alex interrupted, bitterly. "I _already_ feel like hell. I need a distraction, something to focus on."

"I can't tomorrow. I have a lunch meeting."

"A 'lunch meeting?' Is that legal jargon for 'a date'?"

Piper ignored the comment, furious with herself for letting things get this far out of hand. If she didn't want to become the third fired attorney, she had to learn how to keep Alex in check.

"Wednesday," she said, in what she hoped was a non-negotiable tone. "I'll call your counselor to arrange it."

"Fine," Alex agreed. Piper waited for a smart-ass comment to follow, but it seemed that her client was done spouting witticisms for the moment.

"See you then," Piper said with finality, and hung up before Alex could harass her further.

::::::

Later, with the moonlight spilling across her bed through the gap in the curtains, Piper was tossing and turning restlessly between the bedsheets. Her mind refused to calm, shifting back and forth between thoughts of her parents, her career, her impending date with the unknown friend-of-a-friend named Larry. She couldn't get comfortable, and it had nothing to do with her mattress - her _life_ wasn't comfortable. When she laid down at night she didn't feel happy, or satisfied, or even tired; she didn't feel _anything_. It was difficult to sleep with all that emptiness opening up inside her, filling all her hollow spaces.

She got up. Put on a robe. Sat down at her kitchen table.

Alex's folder was still there, sitting exactly where she'd tossed it after getting home from the office.

And just like that, Piper realized that she _needed_ this case. She needed this one case to not be another disappointment, and instead become a success that she could hang her hat on. She wanted to deliver some good news for once. She wanted to _win_. And that meant succeeding at something two other attorneys had already failed to do: getting Alex to cooperate.

She needed to get past that proud, thorny exterior and break through to the real Alex; and in order to do that, she'd have to discover what made her client tick.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Piper pulled the file toward herself and opened it. She was still studying its contents when the morning sun began to shine through her kitchen window, clear and bright and full of promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Wow, the response to the first chapter was amazing! Thank you. I hope the rest of the story doesn't disappoint.

Trigger warning on this chapter for some discussion of drug abuse.

This is a good time to mention that I know very little about law/the legal system, so everything here is based on my limited understanding + a quick google search. It will probably be inaccurate. I hope you'll forgive me in the name of storytelling.

(See the end of the chapter for a couple of replies to your review questions).

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><p>After eighteen hours, Alex wanted a fix. After twenty-four, she <em>ached<em> for one.

She knew what heroin withdrawal looked like. She'd seen some of her top customers go through it over the years. They'd hit bottom and then swear they'd never shoot up again; they'd throw away their needles, ditch their stash, try to get clean - but it never lasted. Two days of sweating and shitting and cramping and they'd be calling her, begging for a fix, promising to buy every ounce of product she could get her hands on.

She found it pathetic, how they dug themselves into holes they could never climb out of; but she also got satisfaction from watching those rich, privileged big-shots fall off their pedestals. They were the kind of people that had ignored and belittled her for years, and Alex liked to see them get on _their_ knees for once and pray for her to rescue them. She was their savior, their Angel of Mercy, beloved for bringing them sweet relief and hated for the price she exacted for it.

She had climbed the backs of those spineless addicts and vaulted her way to the top. How ironic it was, therefore, to look in the mirror and realize she'd become one of them.

The tables had turned - and then turned _again_, fickle as fortune. The customers she'd held in such contempt were presumably living out their lives in the free world, while she was shaking and sweating in a maximum security prison, left alone to face the retribution of the criminal justice system.

At least the worst was over - or that's what she kept telling herself. She'd been clean for a week now. The cramps, the nausea, the chills had finally subsided, and she was physically more stable. But the night sweats persisted, as did the bad dreams, and it was easier not to sleep than to close her eyes and face them. She'd been tired before but now she also felt haunted, by the nightmares and the silence and the endless lonely days. It was so much worse, being in max. Up the hill she at least had the freedom of movement, the closeness of the other inmates. Here, she had nothing but herself, her windowless cell, the slow passing of the hours - and the visits from her lawyer.

Alex had been sitting in the dingy legal counseling room for nearly twenty minutes when the door finally opened to admit her defense attorney. Piper Chapman was wearing another one of those department store business suits, this time in dark grey, with a pair of conservative low heels. Her clothes looked as drab as their surroundings, but she was faultlessly neat, not a hair out of place. Alex considered her own appearance - khaki scrubs, a size too big, with a pair of men's work boots - and felt a new round of self-loathing.

"Alex," Piper greeted, crossing the little room to take her seat across the table. "How are you feeling?"

"How do you think?" Alex snapped, before she could stop herself. Her nose was running again. Her hands, although cuffed, had not been shackled to the chair this time - _thank goodness for small mercies_, she thought sarcastically - and she wiped furiously at her face, feeling like a sniveling child.

As Piper watched, the look in her eyes was something very close to pity. She opened her mouth to speak.

"Don't," Alex growled, warningly. "I told you already, I don't need you feeling sorry for me."

"Nothing to fear on that point," Piper replied, in an icy tone. "I don't. I was going to ask if they've told you when you'll be transferred back up the hill."

"You've never worked with a defendant in max before, have you?" She took Piper's silence as confirmation. "They don't tell me anything. They put me in a room, give me pills that make me sleep, feed me canned beans and moldy lunchmeat three times a day. I don't _talk_ to anyone. I haven't left my fucking cell since the last time I saw you."

"I'll talk to your counselor," Piper said, in an even tone.

Alex studied her attorney's face as she spoke, looking for a reaction - other than an involuntary twitch, there wasn't one. Piper was clearly trying hard to keep herself on an even keel.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Doing what? My job?"

"No. That thing where you keep all the muscles in your face from moving," Alex said pointedly. "Like _you're_ on trial, instead of me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Piper replied, in a voice of determined calm.

"Yes, you do," she persisted. "You just did it again. Is that some sort of courtroom training exercise? Pretending that nothing phases you, even though you're clearly scrambling to improvise an answer?"

"Alex," Piper entreated.

"Piper," Alex echoed.

Her lawyer sighed. "You asked me to come back," she said levelly, "so I'm here. But if you have nothing constructive to say, I can go back to my office and work on your case from there."

Fuck, she hated being talked down to; it was the kind of threat you'd give an attention-seeking nine year old to get them to shut up. Being kept in solitary was clearly screwing with Alex's temperament; she'd lost her filter, her self-control. She took a deep, steadying breath, and then looked Piper in the eye.

"Okay," she said.

"Okay?

"Once I'm clean, I would really like to get out of here."

"Okay," Piper agreed. "I'll talk to your counselor on my way out today. The administration has to abide by the terms of your sentence, which states unequivocally that you should be doing your time in minimum security."

"I think the rules change when they catch you using heroin," Alex said with a wry smile.

"Did they actually catch you?" Piper asked, shifting in her seat. "I mean, did they see you using? Did they find it in your bunk? "

"No." Alex frowned.

"So you stopped on your own? You went into withdrawal, and when they realized you didn't have the flu they put two and two together."

Alex nodded. She was impressed, actually, that her attorney had this much awareness. Most defense counselors could rattle off sentencing laws and legal precedents and half the answers to their national bar exam, but they were completely wrong-footed when reality didn't align with what they'd read in the rulebook. Maybe Chapman wasn't actually as bad as her record.

Maybe Alex wasn't totally fucked after all.

"Why did you quit?" Piper pressed, leaning forward slightly.

The question was intensely personal, and it caught Alex off-guard.

"Because heroin wasn't helping anymore," she answered, surprised at the honestly of her own admission. "Are you my legal counselor, or my therapist? It doesn't matter why I did it, I just need you to get me the fuck out of here."

Piper clasped her hands and laced her fingers together, forearms resting on the table. "Do you know how to win a trial in which the defendant is obviously guilty?"

The optimism that had surged through Alex a moment before retreated just as quickly as it had come; it was clear that her case was hopeless, and her lawyer thought so too. "You don't, I guess."

"Not usually, no. But it happens. Know how?"

"No," Alex repeated, impatiently.

"By convincing the jury that you don't deserve the minimum sentence." She leaned forward in her chair, and Alex stared at her intently. There was a glimmer of something in Piper's gaze, some untapped potential for ferocity that wanted to make itself known.

"Most people," Piper continued, "get so focused on the judge and the sentencing that they forget the crucial fact of the judicial system: the jury of your peers. They're the ones who control the outcome. They're the ones you have to convince. Listen, 'innocent until proven guilty' is an empty catch-phase: you're the defendant, so they already know you're on trial for a reason. They assume you're guilty. They _know_ it. We're not going to change their minds."

"Your optimism is infectious," Alex deadpanned. Her nose was running again, and she sniffled. It sounded like she was going to cry. Fuck, she hated this: it wasn't her. It was like somebody else had taken up residence in her body, turning her into the spitting image of a weak, pathetic charity case. She almost wished she hadn't been granted this stupid retrial; all it did was put her weakness on display.

"Hang on," Piper continued, ignoring her sarcasm. "I'm not finished. The fact of your guilt isn't in question, but the degree of it is. Every crime has a minimum sentence. Some of them are pretty egregious, especially for nonviolent offenses. And every jury has a couple of people who think the criminal justice system is too punitive, and that's who we have to get at. If we can convince them that you're not guilty _enough_ to deserve your sentence, we might be able to persuade the jury to find you not guilty at all."

It sounded pretty far-fetched to Alex, but it was the closest thing to a winning strategy she'd yet heard proposed by one of her attorneys. "How do we do that?" She asked, taking the bait.

Piper smiled. "By appealing to their sense of human compassion. By convincing them that you're a good person who made a mistake." Alex snorted incredulously, but Piper was resolute. "A regular law-abiding citizen," she continued, "who made a couple of bad choices and fell down a slippery slope. We have to get them to identify with you. If they can imagine themselves in your place, they'll vote in your favor."

"So I'm screwed, then."

Alex wasn't being tried by her _peers_ - she was being tried by a bunch of white-collar, 401k, talk-my-way-out-of-speeding-ticket yuppies; the kind of people she'd grown up being teased by, the kind of people who had whispered about her behind their desks in high school, who had graduated and gone on to live boring white-bread lives while Alex left them all in her dust on the way out the door. Those people despised her, they always had. They would never see themselves in her shoes, because she was nothing like them.

"This is never going to work," she informed her lawyer. "We need a different strategy."

"This is the _only_ strategy. Unless you're willing to make a plea deal," Piper added, with a hopeful tilt of her head.

Alex shivered, as if she'd been suddenly plunged into an ice bath. She told herself it must be the fever coming back, but the truth was that thinking about a deal made her insides go cold. If there was a deal to be made, they'd ask her to serve as some kind of informant. They'd want information on the cartel, the drop points, the members; it wasn't going to happen. Alex might be in prison, but she was alive, and that was better than being free and in a body-bag.

"No," she said firmly. "No deals."

Piper sighed. "It's your choice," she acknowledged. "But as your lawyer, I have to tell you that I think you're making a mistake. The war on drugs is a hot-button issue. In a federal court, it would be-"

"No deals," Alex repeated.

She shivered again. Sniffed. Wiped her nose. _Fucking_ _hell,_ this was a waking nightmare.

"Okay," her attorney agreed. "Then we've got our work cut out for us. Let's get started."

For the next half-hour, Alex found herself answering all of the same questions she'd been subjected to when she stood trial the first time. She told Piper how she'd gotten arrested in the airport and flown back to the US in the custody of a US air marshall; she told her how long she'd been dealing, what her fees were, how much product she was moving, how much money she was pulling in. None of this was new information, but Piper took notes as diligently as if she were hearing it for the first time.

"Isn't this all in the case file already?" Alex asked, when the barrage of questions finally ceased. It was pointless to keep recounting all of this, but truthfully Alex was happy to talk if it made Piper stay a little longer. The lawyer was the only human contact she'd had for a week, aside from the guards, and it felt so good to be listened to; to be seen as more than a sheep that needed herding through the corridors.

"Of course it is," Piper said, matter-of-factly. "But we're starting over. This is a new case, a new file. I wanted to hear it all from you, directly."

Alex wondered if Piper was going to compare notes with the testimony she'd already provided for the first trial, and try to catch her in a lie. The thought made her feel uneasy, and she realized she couldn't even remember what she'd said when she was arrested, what she'd told jury the first time around, or what she'd said to her previous attorneys. She didn't know if she'd kept her own story straight. She'd been so high for most of that time period that it was all a blur to her now. All she could remember was the need to avoid everything, to escape, to be free of her own mind. She'd been on the run for years, and even after she'd landed in prison the drugs helped her keep going, helped her put distance between herself and the reality that kept trying to catch up to her. Here in this room, it finally had; and the strange thing was that she didn't want to run anymore. She was tired, and she was ready to rest.

Piper was staring at her, eyebrows furrowed, as if trying to decipher what she was thinking. Alex took the opportunity to stare back, study her, puzzle her out. Despite the grey suit the attorney was wearing, her presence was in sharp contrast with the dull prison aesthetic. She was colorful like nothing else.

Everything here took something from you. The shadows of Alex's windowless cell absorbed light, reflecting nothing back. The silence stole her voice, and offered no words of consolation. The guards took her dignity, doled out humiliation to replace it. But Piper was different; she was luminous, seeming to refract what little sunlight there was in this place. She listened and she talked. She took in pessimism, and offered up hope.

She promised to come back in two days, and it almost felt like something to look forward to.

That night, for the first time in a week, Alex didn't think about heroin.

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><p><span>why not death row? guest<span> - that was my original idea, but when I thought about it couldn't envision Alex doing something bad enough to land on death row. I tried a few ideas - killing an abusive step-father to protect her mom? - but none of them worked for me. Violent premeditated murder just isn't Alex. She's a puppy at heart, you know? So I decided to work within the canon drug charges, that way it wouldn't get too OOC.

'on my knees' guest - hahaha you don't have to get on the floor and beg! I got you.

will character x or y be in the story? I have no idea! A plan for this fic is taking shape in my head, but I'm still working out the specifics and deciding how long/detailed it will be. Stay tuned!


	3. Chapter 3

Inmates housed in maximum security were allowed out in the yard just once per week, and Alex's allotted hour was a long time coming. After six days of sweating and shaking alone in her cell, she was finally granted the privilege of being let out into the open air. The yard was brown and barren and small, but the moment she stepped into it her gaze was drawn upward, over the barbed-wire fence and the jutting guard towers and the sloping Connecticut hills, until it settled on the expanse of sky beyond. It was overcast and dreary, but it made Alex think of flying; of that moment during takeoff when the plane breaks through the clouds, and the passenger realizes that what looks like a solid barrier is really just a wisp of condensation. Beyond that point there's nothing but sun, shining in perpetuity onto an unbroken horizon, surrounded by all that bright blue openness.

Standing in the prison yard, Alex dreamed of escaping through the twelve-foot security fence with the same effortless grace as a plane passing through clouds. For her, heroin had begun to lose its appeal, only to be was replaced by a bizarre but no less powerful longing for _sky_.

And sky, it turned out, was harder to come by than the drugs had ever been. Aside from that single hour in the yard, it could only be glimpsed through windows, which were few and far between. There was a neat row of them in the lunch room, which Alex was finally allowed to visit after being released from solitary (where she'd been held "for her own safety" during the worst of her detox). For the twenty-minute duration of her meals she would absently spoon food into her mouth while staring at that line of high-set rectangles, letting the color of the sky evoke the memory of some other, more pleasant setting. One morning it would be the pale, pinkish hue that reminded her of mornings in Prague, of stumbling back to her hotel still half drunk from having spent the night elsewhere. Probably with a woman - there was always a woman, Alex recalled vaguely, but the memory didn't interest her as much as the particular color of the sunrise. At lunchtime, the patch of midday blue in the window might bring to mind a beach somewhere, Tahiti or Fiji or Cambodia. That blue would remind her of ocean breezes and hot sand, but there was no time to get lost in it. Meals were hectic and hurried and she would soon be back in her cell, facing down the long hours of the afternoon.

It wasn't long before Alex realized that the best place to see sky was in the room where she met with her defense counsel. There was a window set high on one of the dirty cinderblock walls, and in the minutes before her lawyer arrived whatever sun or sky was visible there belonged only to her. She would stare hard, erasing the lines of the window, zooming in on that patch of color until she forgot where she was; for a blissful moment or two she could imagine herself sitting on a plane at 30,000 feet, staring out the window at the same sky. It felt like stealing a moment of freedom.

The door opened. Her lawyer walked in. Piper looked the same as she had on their previous visits, her hair pulled back tidily, her collar neatly pressed. But she was smiling tentatively, like a peace offering, and for some strange reason Alex allowed herself to smile back.

"How are you feeling?" Piper asked.

"Better. Thanks."

"Your counselor says you've been doing well. Staying out of trouble, keeping to yourself. He's prepared to send you back up the hill by the end of the week, as long as their are no setbacks."

"Thank god," Alex breathed, her voice suffused with relief.

Piper's smile faltered. "How are you really feeling?"

Instead of replying, Alex held her hands out in front of her. The handcuffs gave a tell-tale _clank_; there was still a noticeable tremor. She glanced at her traitorous fingers, and then up at her lawyer.

Piper winced. "Well, you look a lot better than you _did_," she said, encouragingly.

"You sure know how to make a woman feel special, Piper."

She was gratified to see a faint blush color her lawyer's cheeks. It was cute. _Really_ cute, and Alex decided that she would spend the next hour trying to reproduce that effect as often as possible.

She pulled her hands back into her lap. "So what part of my tragic backstory are we discussing today?"

"You're very forthcoming all of a sudden," Piper said suspiciously, giving her a long stare. It was true that their previous sessions had been characterized by a certain hostility, but Alex just shrugged.

"I'm feeling better," she said simply. "And I really, really can't wait to get out of here."

Piper nodded approvingly. "That's the spirit." She withdrew a pen, flipped to a blank page in her legal pad, and then settled more comfortably into her seat. "Now, it's time to start talking details. Everything you've told me so far was already on the books. From here on out we're entering uncharted territory, so I'm going to need you to be patient with me while I ask the questions. You may not always see their relevance, but I promise it's all part of building your case."

Alex nodded, feeling a certain trepidation settle into her stomach.

"First thing's first," Piper continued, "we're going to need people who could stand as character witnesses. Family members, lifelong friends, anybody who can testify about your personal integrity."

She shook her head, saying nothing.

"Come on, Alex," Piper prompted, frowning slightly. "There have to be a couple of friends who would do this for you. Think."

"Piper," Alex said, her tone betraying a hint of impatience. "There aren't any friends, okay? I have bosses. Clients. Mules. That's it."

"But you traveled all over the world," Piper pressed. "You had to be traveling _with_ someone."

"Everyone I traveled with was a business contact."

"Okay, what about before that? College friends?"

"Didn't go to college."

"High school?" Piper asked, a little desperately.

Alex's lip curled. Sure, there were a couple of acquaintances: theater kids, burnouts, girls she sometimes went to concerts with. But mostly it was just her and her mom, chatting about their day over a styrofoam container of leftovers from the restaurant where Diane often worked closing shifts. Looking back, maybe it was a little sad that her mom had always been her best friend. But it didn't feel sad. It always seemed right, somehow. It felt like enough.

"Nope," Alex concluded.

Piper looked distraught. "This is really important, Alex. The whole case depends on this."

"Well, it's pretty hopeless anyway," Alex said with a shrug.

"Hey, come on." Piper set her pen down. "A minute ago you were being the optimist. Don't tell me you're going to give up that easily."

She was peering at her client with a slightly hurt look in her eyes, and it made Alex feel ashamed. She looked at her lap, toying with a loose thread on the hem of her ill-fitting beige shirt. "I'll keep thinking about it," she said.

"That's all I ask," Piper said gently, and smiled. She had a nice smile, a friendly, genuine flash of brightness that lit up her whole expression, including her eyes.

"Alex?" she prompted, because her client had frozen with a curious expression on her face, like someone trying to work out the solution to a puzzle.

Alex barely heard her. As she studied Piper's expression, she realized something: the blue of Piper's irises was exactly her favorite shade of sky.

.

[::::]

.

"How'd it go with Larry the other day?" Polly called from the kitchen, emerging a few seconds later with a bottle of wine and two glasses, holding them by their stems.

"It was nice."

"Nice?" Polly echoed, as she handed Piper a glass.

"Nice," Piper confirmed, taking a sip of cheap pinot noir.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, Polly," Piper said, a little impatiently. "It means that he's nice. It was only one date."

"I was really hoping you two would hit it off," Polly replied, sounding crestfallen. "I mean, I know neither of you are really the love-at-first-sight, flying sparks type, but-"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Piper challenged, frowning.

"Nothing! Just that, well... okay don't be mad, Piper, but you can be a little distant sometimes." Piper opened her mouth to retort, but Polly hurried on. "I just mean that you're kind of shy with guys. Like, you're always holding something back."

"That's ridiculous," Piper said, dismissively. "And anyway, it wasn't _bad_. We're going out again this week. He's taking me to that new piano bar, you know the one downtown?"

"Aw, see - he's trying to make a good impression. He's a great guy, Piper. Give him a chance."

"I am!" she said, defensively. "I- oh, hang on, my phone's ringing."

She pulled the device out of her pocket, swiped the call button and held it up to her ear.

_"An inmate from Litchfield Federal Prison is attempting to contact you. To accept this call, press one."_

"Alex?"

"Hey. Is this a bad time?"

"Of course not." Piper stood up, still holding her wine glass. She met Polly's gaze and jerked her chin toward her phone, indicating that she had to take the call and would be a few minutes. Then she strode through the doorway into the kitchen, seeking a little more privacy.

"What's going on?" she prompted.

"They're transferring me back up the hill tomorrow," Alex said, her relief at the news clearly evident in her tone.

"That's great."

"Yeah."

Piper took a sip of her wine, and waited. Alex was silent.

"Is there... anything else?" Piper prompted, frowning slightly.

Another short pause.

"I just wanted to thank you," Alex said, in a voice that was uncharacteristically tentative.

"Thank me?" Piper blinked in surprise.

"Yeah. For um... your help. For talking to my counselor. And I also wanted to tell you," she went on quickly, "that I have an aunt. In Atlantic city. We don't talk that much, but you said to keep thinking about character witnesses. Maybe you can give her a call."

"Okay, sure. How can I reach her?"

Piper grabbed a pen and a pad of paper out of one of Polly's drawers, jotting the phone number down as Alex dictated it. A distant aunt wasn't exactly the kind of witness Piper had in mind, but it was a start, and she said as much to Alex.

When she hung up the phone a few minutes later, she was smiling. She felt like she was finally getting through to her client. The frostiness between them was beginning to thaw, and it gave Piper a feeling of triumph. She'd already gotten farther than any of Vause's previous attorneys. It was all about trust, she'd decided. If she could get Alex to trust her, then she could get her to cooperate. So far, it seemed to be working.

"Who was that?" Polly asked, when Piper returned to the living room.

"Just a client," she replied, brushing the query aside. But when Polly got back on the subject of her date with Larry, Piper was finding it difficult to pay attention.

She was already planning out a list of questions to ask her client during their next session, already pondering what new tactics she could use to get Alex to open up. For some some reason, the prospect of their upcoming meeting filled Piper with far more eager anticipation than the idea of her second date with Larry. She'd always been devoted to her work, and there was no reason to think that anything more than a professional interest was involved here. But the thought of Alex's tentative expression of gratitude stayed at the forefront of her mind, and kept her smiling through the rest of the evening.


End file.
